Friends of former TV weather girl Trai Anfield thought she was “nuts” when she left the BBC - but she has loved every minute of it.

Trai, whose cheery face was beamed into living rooms across the region for 10 years, took the brave step of quitting BBC’s Look North programme.

She set up her own film and photography company, Enlightened Media, and two years on, she has told the Sunday Sun how she hasn’t looked back.

Yesterday, she premiered a new film her venture had produced for the conservation group the Friends of Red Kites, at the Sage, in Gateshead.

Along with being the patron of the group, Trai said she strives to strike a balance between corporate work and helping conservation groups such as Friends of Red Kites and the Mara Lion Project, in Kenya.

But even after swapping a life on the small screen for the other side of the lens, she will always be the woman who presented the weather.

“Day-to-day people still ask me about the weather when I’m out and about and I think I’ll always be known for that,” Trai said.

A former country ranger, now in her 40s, Trai married her long term partner Chris last year and the couple live on the North East coast.

Despite her new domestic bliss she said she’s still got an appetite for a fresh challenge, demonstrated when Trai, who suffers from ME, embarked on a six month journey around the world in 2008in a bid to improve her health.

She added: “I absolutely loved the BBC but I do find it satisfying, the mix.

“I’m still working with technology with photography and filmmaking side and it’s a lot more creative.

“People I don’t know think I was absolutely nuts to leave the BBC but my friends and family were incredibly pleased.”Swapping weather reports to go paw-to-paw with one of nature’s biggest predators has helped Trai return to her wildlife-loving roots and she said she is keen to do as much work to promote environmental issues as she can.

“The rate that lions are disappearing they will be extinct in Africa within the next 20 years.

“The first chapter of the film I was doing really brought it home, a lioness was collared and she went off into the wild and had three cubs but they all were poisoned within six months.

“That poisoning incident killed her whole pride - 14 lions in six months from one incident.

“I was devastated, I’m desperate to get back,” Trai said.

Setting up a new venture can be challenging, especially with little experience of running a business but she said the biggest challenge is the financial climate post-recession.

She added: “I am a very driven person. It’s finding the balance between work that provides enough funding to allow me and the company to survive and doing the work we also think is important.”

Alongside her work for conservation groups Trai said one of the most rewarding aspects of her new venture has been sharing her skills with dozens of budding photographers.

She added: “I learned so many skills at the BBC. It is rewarding making wildlife films for conservation groups, that’s what does it for me.

“Having the chance to help in some small way keeping amazing, beautiful creatures on this earth.

“I’m really trying to feel what I am doing is making a difference, in raising awareness of the need for conservation here and around the world.”